In the beginning, before there was any free time to spend on things,
there was STUFF. Not just stuff but STUFF like stuff found in dreams and
fantasy. It was good STUFF and seemed rather like whipped cream to me
except that it was like a liquid changing forms constantly. It was the
Great Glob of STUFF. Once upon a time, a small and insignificant
creature named Quarky appeared seemingly out of nowhere, sort of like
the rabbit in the hat trick. The little guy took a bite of the STUFF and
said it was good ( or was it god? ). He has a terrible accent. After a
few more bites his innards began to glow and within moments he was
shooting photon sparks out back. It was delightful and disturbing.
Especially what happened next.

Quarky began to control the sparks and soon others like him appeared.
Together they constructed the machine. It consumed STUFF and produced
sparks which could be controlled and directed albeit with limited
resolution. The machine was called the Beast because it was wild and
uncontrollable. Only the direction and flow of sparks could be
controlled. And now it was loose and reproducing it self as fast as
possible.

The machines soon built better versions of themselves, consuming the
STUFF as much as possible but not very efficiently. There was a second
Beast with an in and out hole that was more specialized and much more
efficient at consuming the STUFF. It wasn't as aggressive as the
original Beast. Frankly it was just plain lazy. They were content to
consume the debris and refuse left behind by the Beast as it consumed
the STUFF.

Now there is a lot of the STUFF and the Beast could consume forever.
Unfortunately the machines had a mind of their own and built the
consumer to consume the STUFF. The STUFF soon began to resemble swiss
cheese. The flowing stopped and even the sparks now were being consumed.
Finally the biggest machine ever built took one bit and all the STUFF
disappeared. And it only had one hole, nothing would ever come out.
Quarky and the others were all two hole creatures with an in hole and an
out hole. One hole creatures are as rare as black holes.

The giant machine hummed happily it seemed then it cleaned up everything
dropped, walking, or flying by, consuming it. When it finally finished,
all that remained were Quarky and his friends. Realizing the profound
nature of the giant machine and its potential they formed an alliance.
It would be a bit tricky to work out the details, after all the machine
literally held all the cards, everything was inside its belly and never
coming out. Quarky and friends were bored and needed something to play
with and the machine might just agree to their plan to decorate the
reality with high quality high resolution forms built out of some of the
indigestible STUFF in its belly. Thus began the age of Flicker Light and
the founding of Glow Works.

As agreed Quarky and friends developed incredibly fine filters to
process the STUFF for the machine. Many of their filters (two hole
creatures) continue to process, others the machine just decided to eat.
To this day the two hole model is the favorite. Currently there is work
underway to build creatures inside the machine before everything like us
is eaten.